Canada blocks environmental wackos' obstruction

Canada blocks environmental wackos' obstruction: Foreign Policy:

Nearly 24 hours of voting, 425 pages of legislation, over 800 proposed amendments: This is the marathon from which Canadian members of parliament (MPs) emerged on June 15. 

The session, characterized by the Globe and Mail as "22-plus hours of consecutive spanking" of the dissenting opposition parties by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative majority government, will allow the government to push through omnibus bill C-38. 

Canadians are up in arms about the bill because it includes legislation that will weaken and threaten the legal status of leading environmental groups.

Because Harper is determined to build a new pipeline out of the Alberta tar sands, the center of Canada's oil industry with known reserves that rival Saudi Arabia's.  And he is not about to wait for November to get it done.

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would have funneled Canadian oil down to refineries on the Gulf Coast, remains in political deadlock after the Obama administration blocked the deal in January. 

Incensed by Obama's decision, Harper claimed the pipeline process was being "held hostage" because "certain people in the United States would like to see Canada be one giant national park for the northern half of North America."

In the meantime, Harper's government, as well as impatient oil exporters and Asian markets hungry for Canadian crude, are determined to find new ways out of land-locked Alberta in order to increase oil export volumes.

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the US needs to block these suits that are designed to stall and run up the cost of energy projects.  These groups have used law suits that the EPA uses to achieve its objectives without going through the rule making process and to get around legislation.  The collusion is palpable.  It has become another form of corruption.